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HomeExploreHealth & FitnessSauna and Steam Bath Traditions Around the World
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A Finnish smoke sauna and a Turkish hammam both make room for heat, but the spaces look and feel very different. These photographs show how wood stoves, heated marble, clay chambers, and neighborhood bathhouses shape bathing traditions around the world.

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Images16

1
Finnish Smoke Sauna
Finnish Smoke Sauna: Weathered logs enclose this savusauna at Telkkämäki Heritage Farm in Kaavi. Traditional Finnish smoke…
2
Turkish Hammam
Turkish Hammam: A heated marble platform called the göbek taşı fills the center of the hot room at Alaaddin Hamamı in…
3
Russian Banya
Russian Banya: The leafy venik rests on the bench of this Russian banya, beside a wooden bucket and a large stove. Birch…
4
Japanese Sentō
Japanese Sentō: A Mount Fuji mural looks down on the bathing area in Kodakara-yu. The 1929 neighborhood sentō was moved…
5
Korean Jjimjilbang
Korean Jjimjilbang: This corridor leads to heated chambers in a Korean jjimjilbang, including a kiln-style room known as a…
6
Mexican Temazcal
Mexican Temazcal: This low, enclosed temazcal stands on an island in Xochimilco. The Mexican steam-bath tradition uses…
7
Diné Sweat Lodge Reconstruction
Diné Sweat Lodge Reconstruction: The smaller earth-covered structure beside the hogan is a reconstructed Diné (Navajo)…
8
Southern Estonian Smoke Sauna
Southern Estonian Smoke Sauna: The cloud rising above the stones is leil, the steam in an Estonian smoke sauna. UNESCO…
9
Helsinki’s Löyly Public Sauna
Helsinki’s Löyly Public Sauna: The sloping timber shell wraps around Löyly, a public sauna that opened on Helsinki’s…
10
Moroccan Palace Hammam
Moroccan Palace Hammam: Round openings let light into this vaulted room in Dar Menebhi’s private hammam. The palace is now…
11
Irish Stone Sweathouse
Irish Stone Sweathouse: A low doorway opens into the stone sweathouse at Tirkane, near Maghera. Such small buildings were…
12
Lithuanian Pirtis
Lithuanian Pirtis: This wooden sauna cabin stands at the Lithuanian Sea Museum’s reconstructed fishing farmstead at…
13
Latvian Pirts
Latvian Pirts: This timber pirts stood at Spirēni in the Kurzeme region before moving to the Latvian Ethnographic Open-Air…
14
Georgian Sulfur Bath
Georgian Sulfur Bath: The tiled Orbeliani Bath is one of Tbilisi’s sulfur baths. Natural hot water supplies the bathhouses…
15
Roman Caldarium
Roman Caldarium: The marble basin sits in the apse of the caldarium, or hot room, in Pompeii’s Forum Baths. Roman public…
16
Japanese Tidal Onsen
Japanese Tidal Onsen: Stone walls enclose Mizunashi Kaihin Onsen on the coast of Hakodate. At low tide, the pools are…

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